"If you could just move her out into the hangar, we're both fine here for the time being," Davis says. "You'd probably wanna get out there and start working on the rest of the team," he motions at the frisbee, "I can wait for now. I've had worse."
Angel stands and fires off a series of shots to finish of the Turai as the battle seems to stabilize, before rejoining the bloody and shellshocked team, casually reloading his rifle.
He looks over at the blood stained kids and the corpse of their former owner, shaking his head. "Christ..."
Something occurs to him, and he address the captain. "Hey Sir? What about the kids?", his eyes locked on the children. When he turns to actually look at the Captain...
The 9-year old boy with Malenko's handlancer grabs a few other children and walks cautiously towards the airlock.
"Can you open the d-door?" he calls to Semo, the biggest adult he can see. "We... we want to leave."
There is a handful of other kids still on the ground who are just now realizing the battle's over. Some are cowering in the catwalk supports, some in the corners of the hangar. Some went back into the ship with the crew - presumably those would be actual ship-children (not Malenko's playthings) or the newly bought kids.
The blue-tinged boy who had been rooting through Leno's corpse runs back towards the assault ship's cargo bay, widget in hand.
"Gladly," Semo replies with a friendly smile to the kids. "Glad you got out of this mess okay." Turning, he slaps the airlock door controll and steps aside.
"Specialist, you're with me," he says to Riviera, shoving the healing thingy into Davis' hands without comment. "Let's go see if anyone's alive inside the ship."
(EDIT: Taylor's dead, unless you meant that on purpose as a sign of Semo losing it)
Ngawai and Hugh, both of whom do nothing to help their carriers, are moved out into the hangar as the pint-sized refugees from the assault ship cycle the airlock back into the shadowport. Once the stragglers realize the battle really IS over, they are quick to follow their peers outside.
Davis isn't a trained medic, but he knows Hugh got fucked up by a beam weapon and took a knock on the head. Conceptualizing these injuries must come easier to Luis, because although Captain Verrill wakes up and his chest begins a slow regeneration, he certainly feels like he's been run over by a herd of teranteks, to use the local metaphor.
Hugh wakes to a splitting headache and an itchy, burning pain across his chest. Then Davis presses his rifle into his hands and tells him to "watch her". Hugh stifles a groan as he looks around at the tatters of his team. The entire port authority boarding team lies dead. Mellish... Mellish might be dead as well. Arketta's moving at least, enough for Davis to rush to her side with the frisbee first. The device flares again and Arketta curls up in pain. By the time Davis crosses the hangar and climbs the catwalk to Mellish, Arketta is sitting up, raw skin knitting over her near-fatal gutshot.
Mellish is bad. He's unresponsive, hardly has a pulse, and blood is everywhere. Still, "hardly has a pulse" is not "doesn't have a pulse". Davis hopes the alien thing works and activates it for the third time.
Mellish convulses, screams a gurgling, ragged scream, and vomits forth a bloody slop onto the catwalk. He lies back once more, exhausted from even that, as his abdomen starts putting itself back together.
"Thanks, Davis," he whispers. "Whatever Doc says about you, it ain't true." he manages a weak smile.
It's at that time that some joker on Malenko's crew takes a potshot at Semo and Angel. They're approaching the cargo bay, following the kid with Leno's widget, when a flurry of poorly-aimed beamer shots lance out of the bay! Putupu and Riviera cover behind the cargo bay entrance as the gunman shouts, "Just stay back! We got no quarrel with you, we just want to leave!" Then to the shipboy: "Come on boy, get in here!"
If the bay's anything like the Morningstar's, the shooter's in the doorway leading to the main personnel section of the ship. It's good cover, and although there's ample cover provided by the containers of assemblers inside, the single access point makes a frontal assault a difficult prospect.
---
Meanwhile, Max and his team check up on their comrades via Max's illicit monotask camera feed. It looks like their boys are mopping up. They've recaptured Ngawai, Hugh and Arketta are moving again, and Mellish just got frisbeed. Then beamer fire shoots out from the assault ship's cargo bay.
"They ain't gonna be worried about protocol at this point," One-Ton mentions. "Airlock might be in range of their anti-personnel weapons - or they might just shut their cargo bay and pop holes in those big hangar doors with killdrones. Plus Jang-xur's gonna have more posses on the way."
Davis runs up next to Semo and Angel, recovered beam rifle in his hand. "Let me try, Sergeant."
He scoots closer to the door. "We don't have any personal issues with you either, but you and I have a problem right now. We need to get onto your ship and clear your computer logs, and I doubt you'll just let us walk on in. Also, your shipboy has something we need to get out of here. We don't want to have to come in there, but the longer you talk, the less time we all have, so what do you say you just lower that beamer and let us come in, do what we need to do, and everyone goes home?"
The voice is male, older than Davis would guess, and is tinged with fear. "St-stay where you are! You're not boarding us! You can have the portmaster's vox after we're done with it! You stay outside the cargo bay!"
A calmer, gravelly voice joins the first. You figure this one's come down the main corridor behind the shooter. He first says something you can't make out, but it calms down the shooter, then half-shouts to make himself heard through the cargo hold.
"I'm the acting shipmaster. We don't want another firefight. As my man said, we'll give you the corpse's vox after we clear our lockdown. Why do you need access to our logs?"
"We need to see your logs to make sure this little incident never occurred. We won't destroy your logs, you'll still be able to get out of here, but we have to have access to your logs. Don't try to do anything clever like make backups, we'll know. We don't want to have to come in there, and this might work out well for you, too. Wouldn't want word that you were all complicit in Malenko's predilection for molesting and eating children, would you?"
Davis leans back over to Semo and Angel. "Try to raise Max and Luis on the horn, get one of them down here and tell them to bring four C4 charges with them."
"Eating...? Cannibalism never occurred on this shi- that's got nothing to do with our situation here!" the acting shipmaster interrupts himself. A bit flustered at the constant accusations of cannibalism, he continues. "Anyway, we'll trade you for the log access: you send one man, unarmed, aboard to witness us the log wipe; you carry Lady Malenko's body into the cargo hold; and you leave Ngawai there on the hangar deck when you leave."
"How about this: You let me send in a three man team, armed to the teeth so you don't ambush us, we deal with the logs ourselves while you watch, we leave you Malenko's body and take Ngawai with us, or we wait for our reinforcements to arrive, including another team from the station, and we do it ourselves anyway. We've already killed all of your guards and we've seen how well you guys shoot, so it won't be much trouble at all for us to blow straight through all of you. It's just been a long day and we'd rather do this peacefully. Deal?"
Feels like I've been kicked by a...by a...what's the name? Not a horse. Small horse, bad temper...aw fuck. Frisbee'd. Note to self, check dictionary.
Hugh rights himself. That's not easy when you're as fucked up as he is, but somehow he manages. The rifle, yes the rifle is still there. Comforting, that.
He watches Davis negotiate with faint bemusement.
"How many tangos inside?" he asks with a hoarse voice.
"Um... wait a minute," the 'shipmaster' blurts out. He may not be a negotiator, but he realizes when he's got a good hand. "How about you keep Ngawai, nobody comes aboard, we lift our lockdown, I shut this door here, open the hangar to space, and we leave. Believe me, we don't want any of this in our logs either but nobody else is bringing weapons aboard this heap."
"I think our desire to not get shot in the back is a reasonable one. How about everyone comes outside, you drop yours, we drop ours, two from each side goes in, and we both wipe the logs together. Cooperation. Sound good to you?"
"My only problem with that is that you've got nothing I want bad enough to leave my ship for," the acting master calls. "Your first deal's better. Make it a two man team, armed. You wipe the logs, we watch. Put Malenko's body in the hold. You keep your reinforcements out in the traverse. We see anyone new in the hangar, we fire killdrones into the hangar doors and you hold your breath. Otherwise, you get your logs wiped, the portmaster's vox, and we leave."
Davis looks down at his watch. "Shit, our tech isn't here yet. Better plan. One of my friends and I will come on board, lightly armed, just one weapon, and you give us two of your guys. We get the hell out of here before port security starts asking questions, and we meet up somewhere in the nebula."
"Okay! My two will search you and your man in the cargo hold. You do the same. My men will have one of our voxes; they'll contact me once they're aboard your ship and we'll lift your lockdown. Set your shipboard vox to channel 8177 once you're out and we'll meet up in space. That's Eight-one-seven-seven."
"They ain't gonna be worried about protocol at this point," One-Ton mentions. "Airlock might be in range of their anti-personnel weapons - or they might just shut their cargo bay and pop holes in those big hangar doors with killdrones. Plus Jang-xur's gonna have more posses on the way."
Max keys his Delta radio.
"Captain? Max here. We've been watching the play-by-play. The Morningstar's good to go and I have way around the lockdown. One-Ton did mention that we should be leaving sooner rather than later. We've stirred up a lot more trouble than we came here for."
"Done," Davis says. "Just give me a minute to get everything all arranged."
He walks a bit away from the entrance. "Okay, my plan, I think it's fair that I risk my neck on this one. You guys figure out who else is coming with me, I have to go talk to Ngawai before we get out of here."
Once he gets over to Ngawai, he takes a knee next to her. "You've got two options right now. Either we leave you here to take your chances with the port authorities, who will no doubt be very upset you killed one of their top guys, or you can come with us, and your life will improve or worsen depending on your behavior. Your pick."
"One minute!" the shipmaster shouts, then the cargo hold door shuts with a thick clang.
---
Ngawai looks at Davis through the crack in her helmet. There's genuine surprise there before her eyes harden.
"Leave me here and I'll call us even. I think that's safer for both of us," she replies. "If that fat scrofa's backup gets here in time for you to tell them what I did, we're both fucked."
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